Had Carl Pei’s Nothing brand announced the Nothing Phone 2a Plus – a follow-up to the company’s budget-centric Phone 2a — three months back, we might’ve spared it a glance on Twitter before going on with our day. Now that Nothing is officially headed South Africa’s way (perhaps a little later than expected), there’s a glimmer of hope that we might eventually get the Phone 2a Plus.
But we wouldn’t bet on it just yet.
Can we bring a Plus 2?
Extra power, extra pixels, extra unique.
Phone (2a) Plus. Our most popular smartphone, now amplified. pic.twitter.com/YCqDHowR2q
— Nothing (@nothing) July 31, 2024
Our hype might not make the most sense to anybody who has yet to try out Nothing’s latest tech. We have –specifically the flagship Phone 2 and its budget-beating little brother, the Phone 2a. One might not see why we’re getting so excited about a minor hardware upgrade to a three-month-old smartphone (that we’d argue was perfect as is), but we can’t help it. Who wouldn’t want a faster processor, a shiny new coat, and an upgraded camera?
If you were hoping for a display larger than the Phone 2a’s 6.7in AMOLED panel, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Where other companies might attribute a larger display to a ‘Plus’ model, Nothing’s opted to go the hardware route, whacking in a new MediaTek Dimensity 7350 Pro 5G processor, currently exclusive to this device.
Read More: Nothing Phone 2a review – Finally, Nothing to write home about
Nothing reckons it’ll boost performance by around 10% compared to the original 2a. Not worth the price jump? How about a new 50MP selfie shooter embedded into the front of the display, up from the 32MP sensor found in the original model? Still nothing? Fine. The final upgrade sees wired charging get a bump up to 50W, a minimal 5W upgrade over the Phone 2a.
Unfortunately, we’ve just had confirmation from Nothing’s official South African distributor, Cernotech, that the Phone 2a Plus is currently “market restricted”, meaning that you’ll need to pop over to the US or the UK to pick yourself up one of these bad boys. Unless Nothing removes that restriction, in which case Cernotech feels confident that it’ll bring it to stock. Never say never, and all that.
Should you take our idea to pop overseas for a smartphone more seriously than we did, you’ll need to cough up $400 (R7,350) for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. You’ll even get a shiny metallic-looking chassis for all your trouble.